Treatment of textiles



United States Patent 3,458,273 TREATMENT OF TEXTILES John William Case,Norman Frederic Crowder, and Wilfred Arthur Stephen White, Runcorn,England, assignors to Imperial Chemical Industries Limited, Millbank,London, England, a corporation of Great Britain No Drawing. Filed May12, 1966, Ser. No. 549,469 Claims priority, application Great Britain,May 24, 1965, 21,905/ 65 Int. Cl. D06l N02 US. Cl. 8-139 6 ClaimsABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE There is provided a process for scouringtextile materials by passing the textile materials through a bath of ahalogenated organic solvent and thereafter freeing the textiles fromadherent solvent by evaporation thereof. The improvement in the processcomprises passing the textile materials through the process inmulti-layer form. The textiles may suitably be in the form of sheets ofwebs, either woven or non-woven, and suitably the evaporation of thesolvent is accomplished with hot water or steam.

This invention relates to a process for the treatment of textilematerials, more particularly for the scouring of textile materials withorganic solvents.

It is known, for example from UK. specification Nos. 812,894 and 916,338to treat textile materials with organic solvents, particularlychlorinated hydrocarbon solvents, in order to clean them. This procedureis sometimes termed a solvent-scouring treatment.

In such processes the textile material is passed through the organicsolvent under conditions which enable contamination to be removed fromthe textile material, and then the treated textile material, laden withsolvent, is passed through an apparatus in which the solvent isevaporated and recovered. This final stage, termed the fiash-ofi stagemay be carried out using hot water or steam.

It has long been a problem in processes for the treatment of textilematerials to design apparatus and techniques which enable the textilematerials to be treated at a sufficiently rapid rate to give a plantthroughput sufficient to make the process economically attractive. Thisis especially important when the textile materials are in the form ofwoven fabrics which have to be subjected to a succession of operationsin turn, and the slowest process stage dictates the maximum speed forthe whole series of treatments.

In order to secure high throughput, the usual method employed is tocarry the textile through the plant at as high a speed as possible, butconsiderations such as plant construction problems and treatment timesusually impose limitations on the speeds which can be used.

We have now found that solvent-scouring techniques can be used toproduce very high throughputs of textile materials by putting thetextile materials in multi-layer form through a solvent-scouringprocess. This is possible in the case of solvent-scouring because theorganic solvent can penetrate quite satisfactorily through the variouslayers of textile material, whereas none of the conven tional aqueousscouring techniques can do so.

Thus according to our invention we provide an improved process for thescouring of textile materials which comprises passing the said textilematerials in multi-layer form through a bath of an organic solvent,which removes grease and contamination from the textile materials, andthereafter freeing the textile materials from adherent solvent.

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The solvents and the techniques which can be used may be in particularany of those described more fully in UK. specifications Nos. 812,894;916,338; 747,481; 749,705; 812,893; 844,943; 825,402 and patentapplications Nos. 38,216/64 and 9,977/65. Thus the solvent may be inparticular trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, 111:2-trichloro-l:2z2-trifluoroethane or mixtures thereof. The choice ofsolvent to be used depends very much upon the textile materialconcerned, and the solvent is best chosen so that its solvent propertiesand its boiling point are such that its use will not adversely affectthe textile material.

Apart from the feature that the textile material is carried through theprocess in multi-layer form, the process of the present invention isessentially the same as those already known. The inventive feature liesin the fact that only the solvent-scouring technique permits the use ofmultiple layers, and that the previously known aqueous scouringtechniques fail completely when used with anything other than singlelayers of textile materials and with long residence times because of theseverely limited powers of penetration of such systems.

Textile materials which may be treated by the process of our presentinvention include those made of cotton and other cellulosic materials,wool, linen, regenerated cellulose, and a variety of other natural andartificial materials including nylons, polyester, polypropylene,esterified cellulosic materials, such as acetate rayon, and acrylicfibres, and mixtures of natural and/or artificial materials. The textilematerials may be in the form of webs or sheets, either woven ornon-woven, including knitted goods, as may be desired. The technique isuseful for treating textile materials which are of too light a weight(or of such construction) to be passed through a machine at high speedat open width without considerable risk of damage. The process can alsobe applied to the use of multiple layers of heavier materials purely forthe purpose of scouring high throughput.

What We claim is:

1. In a process 'for the scouring of textile materials which comprisespassing the said textile materials through a bath of a halogenatedorganic solvent which removes grease and contamination from the textilematerials, and thereafter freeing the textile materials from adherentsolvent by evaporation of the solvent, the improvement comprisingpassing the said textile materials through the said process inmulti-layer form.

2. Process as claimed in claim 1 wherein the textile materials aretreated in open width.

3. The process of claim 1 wherein the said textile materials are in theform of webs or sheets.

4. The process of claim 1 wherein the said textile materials are of toolight a weight or of such a construction that the said textile materialscould not be passed through the process at high speeds at open widthwithout considerable risk of damage.

5. The process of claim 1 wherein the evaporation of the said solvent iscarried out by using hot water or steam.

6. The process of claim 3 wherein the said textile materials are wovenor non-woven or knitted goods.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,176,705 10/1939 Derby 8139.12,790,699 4/1957 White 8--139.1 XR 3,042,479 7/ 1962 Lawrence et al8-142 MAYER WEINBLATI, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 8--137, 139.1

